Week8-Social media

Twitter wins

Social networks will play a key role in the future of marketing; externally they can replace customer annoyance with engagement, and internally they help to transform the traditional focus on control with an open and collaborative approach that is more conducive to success in the modern business environment (Harris and Rae, 2009).

Which social media channel is the one most likely to deliver commercial results? To make a choice between Facebook and Twitter, Laycock (2008) said “I've likened Twitter to ‘acceptable eavesdropping’ and pointed out how easy it makes it to join the conversation. Twitter is one of the fastest ways to make inroads with other people in your industry. It also gives we some insight into who companies and bloggers are as people; their likes, their dislikes, their personalities. This can be invaluable when it comes to putting together pitches and building relationships both inside and outside of your industry”.

And for my point of view, Twitter also wins.

1.) Twitter is about the conversation.

We can have conversation on Facebook, but it's a different kind of conversation with Twitter. The best way I can think to describe it is to give real world analogies. With Facebook, we have insight into each person via their profiles, but we're mostly communicating one on one. Twitter is sort of like a giant dinner party. There are tons of conversations going on and we can easily join one, or we can start a new one. We can even carry on multiple conversations at once. It's total conversational freedom. Businesses may find that they can raise brand awareness and build customer relationships at a very low cost to themselves (Harris and Rae, 2009).

2.) Twitter is more like a viral marketing.

When a fashion retailer launches a new look, people will immediately tweet it if they are interested in with some comments. It's been said that blogs can take an idea and spread it from New York to Tokyo in minutes. If that's true, then it's also true Twitter can do it in seconds. It takes very little time to blog something. It takes less time to email something. It takes even less time to tweet it. Send something interesting out into Twitter and folks will pick it up and repost to their own list of followers in seconds. Suddenly the network grows infinitely. The second one person on Twitter hears the news, it spreads like wild fire. Dell Computers is using Twitter to sell off clearance items to its brand champions who are following Dell at: http://twitter.com/delloutlet (Harris and Rae, 2009).

3.) Twitter brings commercial results

Retailers tweet new collection frequently, doing the advertisements and stimulating the transaction as well. They put on link of their online shop in the tweet, directly bringing people into the clothes they may be interested in. For example, a typical message may read “click here for a discount on my latest book published on Amazon today”. These messages can reach a wider audience when they are fed through to display in the author's blog or Facebook profile (Harris and Rae, 2009). Besides, retailers can also cooperate with some famous magazines. As a result, the twitter of that magazine will also do the advertisements for retailers by introducing new collection. It's a "win-win" market, wining the magazine awareness as well as bringing commercial results for retailers.

So the friendly and hedonic environment makes people willing to tweet the interest pieces. The interactive feature builds a close relationship between retailers and consumers. And the high spread speed makes retailers inform consumers of their news more efficient and effective.